Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
It wouldn’t be forever, I reminded myself silently as I hooked up the long lead from tree to tree, looking a lot like a clothesline, but a leash would hang from it, allowing Storm to move around freely while my hands were too busy to hold his leash.
I hoped to have him trained eventually so that leashes wouldn’t be necessary, but I couldn’t risk him running off and getting lost in the meantime.
With him secure, I started to move some more of the firewood inside.
It was on the third trip back outside that my gaze fell on it.
The shovel.
The one I’d used to dig a grave.
The one a stranger had used to fill said grave in when I couldn’t do it myself.
A hiker or camper or something, likely using the trails that belonged to the parks system.
But there’d been something unnerving about his presence.
Not just because he was absolutely absurdly handsome.
Tall and thin, but strong, with these gorgeous stormy blue eyes that fought for attention in his handsome face. Handsome in a kind of rugged way, a wide jaw, a stern brow.
He didn’t strike me as a man who smiled easily or often. He hadn’t even given me one of those tight smiles we offered strangers, letting them know we were friendly, that we weren’t a threat.
Maybe he was a threat.
No.
I shook that thought off, refusing to let it plant, take root, grow into something I was going to obsess over endlessly for days or weeks, jumping at shadows, overanalyzing every noise I heard.
He was just a guy who got turned around. Who offered a woman clearly in need of it some help.
I was just wound up, seeing the worst in everyone.
Because, well, of the reason I was in this cabin in the first place.
Then, of course, we couldn’t forget the mysterious stranger with the graves and body bags.
As if things weren’t already crazy enough.
But, I reminded myself, guys who buried bodies in the woods definitely didn’t come back and potentially lead others or the police to them.
Right?
I mean, I couldn’t even find the graves today. I’d done a little looking around, but there didn’t seem to be any fresh earth around anywhere.
I could almost convince myself that I’d seen things, that my trauma and overactive imagination had painted memories that didn’t really exist.
Almost.
But I was too damn rational for that.
There was no way I’d imagined that. No matter how exhausted, traumatized, and terrified I was at the time.
Someone had buried bodies in the woods of my family property.
I felt like I probably should have been more concerned with that than I was. Worried about the victims, about their families.
But what could I do?
If I went to the police, my name would pop up somewhere. I could be traced.
I couldn’t risk that.
No matter how selfish that was.
Selfishness was how I was going to keep surviving.
I refused to feel guilty for that.
Maybe, when all this was done, I could call in an anonymous tip. Until that day, there was no use in feeling bad about it.
I spent the rest of the day messing around with an ax, trying to figure out how to swing it properly, even though objectively, I knew I had more than enough time to stock up on firewood if there was a chance of me having to continue staying here through the winter.
I hoped that wasn’t the case.
But I had to be smart and prepared for any outcome.
It wasn’t just my own life I had to think about now, I realized as Storm walked over after chasing the shadows on the ground caused by the birds flitting around overhead, and rested his head on my thigh.
“We’ll figure it out, right, bud?” I asked, running my finger through his hair.
I’d brought him to the pet store that had a bathing station, which saved me from having to figure out how to give him a wash that wasn’t completely frigid.
I’d been half-tempted to climb in that tub myself.
“You ready for some dinner?” I asked as I unhooked him from the lead, and made my way inside with him as my shadow.
It was a quiet evening. Eating dinner, taking a walk close to the cabin, then curling up with a low fire going, Storm chewing on a teething toy, and me reading a book by lamplight.
If this was the only future I had to look forward to for a while, I could be okay with that.
Especially as Storm climbed up in bed with me, snuggling up, and drifting off to a dream-filled sleep, full of little leg twitches and quiet barks. Then some epic snoring.
Eventually, he quieted down, and I drifted off to sleep as well.
Only to be woken by Storm’s whimpers and scratches at the back door.
“Ugh,” I grumbled, guessing I’d maybe only been asleep for half an hour at that point. But I didn’t want to be cleaning up a mess in the dark, either, if he actually had to go. “I’m coming,” I said, sliding off of the bed, and barely managing to remember to slip my feet into my slides before reaching for his leash.